Question

I have a problem with Ubuntu 11.04. When I try to create new folder it show error “mkdir: cannot create directory `new_folder’: Read-only file system “. I have no write access to any directory.

administrator@ubuntu:/var/www$ mkdir new_folder
mkdir: cannot create directory `new_folder’: Read-only file system

Any body know about this please give a help.

Answer 1

Try using the sudo command like so:

$ sudo mkdir my-folder

This will ask for your password unless you’ve already used it recently, so type it in if it asks (it won’t render the text for security).

If you frequently use this and are tired of entering sudo before everything, type login root and enter the password, but BE VERY CAREFUL! You don’t want to accidentally delete any important files or do something else you can’t take back!

Another solution:

If you want to give the folder write permissions, use

$ chmod +w my-folder

By default when a file is created, the user group that did so will have read, write, and execute permissions on it.